As regards the design of a cabin, one design contemplates furnishing on a center console disposed between a driver seat and an assistant driver's seat with a shift lever as illustrated in FIG. 1 depicting a mode of embodiment of this invention. In this specification, when a cup holder or a containing device is installed by making use of the space lying on the center console and behind the shift lever, the can, cup, beverage container of the shape of a bottle (hereinafter referred to collectively as a “container”) can be conveniently taken from the side adjoining the seat.
The containers, however, vary numerously in shape and have their diameters and heights changed depending on the kinds of beverage and their makers. Some, if not all, conventional techniques have entailed the possibility that when a driver, while a container is retained in a cup holder, attempts to operate a shift lever, the container will interfere with the driver's hand and render the operation difficult and that when the container happens to have a large height, the driver's hand will accidentally collide with the container and topple it to spill its content. When the retaining recess constituting a cup holder is given an increased depth to cope with the trouble just mentioned, it renders difficult to extract a container from the recess. The concept of making a retaining recess to enable a bottom receiving part adapted to receive and support a container to change its place vertically in conformity with the height of the container by a height-adjusting means has been developed as disclosed in JP-A 2003-48472 that covers the invention of the present patent applicant.
Though the configuration disclosed in JP-A 2003-48472 mentioned above is capable of enabling a container of varying height to be retained to a preferred height, it is difficult in operation because the bottom receiving part for mounting a container requires its height to be manually adjusted with the height-adjusting means. It is not inconceivable that the container will continue to thrust largely from the retaining recess, depending on the degree of adjustment of height. In this case, the thrust will interfere with the driver's shifting operation as experienced to date.
This invention is aimed at providing a configuration for operating an interior device such that the interior device such as a cup holder is automatically adjusted to the position of optimum height and, when the driver grips an operating member such as the shift lever, the interior device such as the cup holder is moved to a position not to hinder the operation and a cup holder using the configuration.